Utility-type vehicles are commonly used to perform a number of different jobs. The same vehicle may be used to plow, till, brush, blow, transport or drill. Each job requires the attachment of a specialized implement. Implements which mount directly to the vehicle may be heavy and cumbersome and require that the vehicle operator dismount to couple the implements to the vehicle. Frequently, more than one person will be required to properly attach the implement.
Quick attaching couplers are known for connecting implements to earthmoving equipment, particularly different buckets to front-end loaders. However, while front-end loaders need only to be raised and lowered, implements such as plows, snowblowers and brooms need also to be rotatable in a horizontal plane.
Furthermore, most quick attaching couplers are not themselves easily removable from the vehicle. Utility vehicles, which may have implements mounted in the rear and mowers mounted beneath, for purposes of balance, manueverability, and convenience, would benefit from a coupler that is itself easily removable.
Many conventional vehicles, such as light utility tractors, have vertically mounted belt-drive pulleys which extend from the vehicle engine. Many commonly available implements, however, are adapted to be driven by a rotating power-take-off shaft. To accommodate these implements to a vehicle having a belt-drive pulley, each particular implement is commonly provided with an apparatus for converting the rotary motion of the tractor belt-drive pulley to the rotary motion of a power-take-off shaft. A user of a multiplicity of implements must then acquire conversion units for each implement. Not only are multiple conversion units costly, but additional time is required for each change of implement to substitute the new implement conversion unit.
A power-take-off conversion unit is needed which may be quickly attached to a vehicle having a belt-drive pulley, which may be easibly adjusted and which may be readily utilized to drive any conventional shaft-driven implement.